Credit: istockphoto
PARIS: Millions of tonnes of plastic debris dumped each year in the world's oceans could pose a lethal threat to whales, according to a scientific assessment to be presented at a key international whaling forum.
A review of research literature from the last two decades reveals hundreds of cases in which cetaceans - an order including 80-odd species of whales, dolphins and porpoises - have been sickened or killed by marine litter.
Entanglement in plastic bags and fishing gear have long been identified as a threat to sea birds, turtles and smaller cetaceans. For large ocean-dwelling mammals, however, ingestion of such refuse is also emerging as a serious cause of disability and death, experts say.
Grisly examples abound
In 2008, two sperm whales stranded on the California coast were found to have a huge amount - 205 kilos in one alone - of fish nets and other synthetic debris in their guts. One of the 15-metre animals had a ruptured stomach, and the other, half-starved, had a large plug of wadded plastic blocking its digestive tract.
Seven male sperm whales stranded on the Adriatic coast of southern Italy in 2009 were stuffed with half-digested squids beaks, fishing hooks, ropes and plastic objects. In 2002, a dead minke whale washed up on the Normandy coast of France had nearly a tonne of plastic in its stomach, including bags from two British supermarkets.
"Cuvier's beaked whales in the northeast Atlantic seem to have particularly high incidences of ingestion and death from plastic bags," noted Mark Simmonds, author of the report and a member of scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which meets next week from July 11-14 on the British island of Jersey.
Could it threaten entire population?
How widespread the problem is, and whether it could threaten an entire population or species, remains unknown.
"In many areas of the world, stranded whale carcasses are not recorded or examined, and in areas where strandings are recorded, examination of gut contents for swallowed plastics is rare," said Chris Parsons, a marine biologist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
The majority of cetaceans that die from intestinal trauma getting caught up in fishing gear probably sink to the ocean floor, experts say.
"There is, however, evidence that plastic debris in the seas can harm these animals by both ingestion and entanglement, and this needs to be urgently further investigated," said Simmonds, Director of Science for Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. The main threats to cetaceans worldwide are accidental capture in fishing nets and climate change, he said. "We don't yet know enough about marine debris to rank it against other threats, but as it continues to sadly grow in the oceans, it will surely play a greater and greater role."
